Crisis management as a theme cuts across a number of different issues that are supremely important to today’s general counsel – and in today’s 21st century business landscape, it seems more often than not that it’s a matter of when, not if, that seemingly inevitable crisis hits.
Continue reading “The GC’s role in preparing for the (inevitable) crisis”
Since the turn of the millennium, Africa has been a hotbed for foreign investment activity. As China’s ‘Go Out’ investment policy hit full stride and western investors sought new, potential high-return ventures in which to place their capital, the prominence of Africa as an investment destination has burgeoned.
Continue reading “The changing talent economy in sub-saharan Africa”
James Ratcliffe has a curious job – one in which art, argument and puzzle-solving come together across global jurisdictions to meet at the crux of the international luxury art market. Ratcliffe, who has a background in archaeology and commercial litigation, is general counsel and director of recovery at the Art Loss Register (ALR), a London-based private company that holds the world’s largest private database of lost and stolen art. Mired in criminality, old money, loss and recovery, this is a job made for the movies. Continue reading “In-house life: James Ratcliffe, art loss register”
Until 2003, when the Geneva-based sailing syndicate established by Ernesto Bertarelli won the America’s Cup, landlocked Switzerland and the Swiss had not been considered part of the leading seafaring nations. The very fact that the sail-boat Alinghi has won the Auld Mug twice is a great example of how things can change, and that new players from non-traditional backgrounds can enter and re-define any given playing field.
Working at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) wouldn’t suit every lawyer. If you yearn for walls spotted by Damien Hirst, encrusted with crackly oils of senior partners from days of yore or plastered with impassioned corporate values, you’d be disappointed. Desks groaning with gonks, or festooned with file boxes or framed pictures of you losing your lunch on the Corkscrew? Colour, of any kind? Ha, you wish. The overall effect is a little, er, Spartan.
Since the advent of the global financial crisis back in 2008, the emphasis in Europe has been on repairing those economies worst hit. During this period, some states have felt the impact of the economic crisis worse than others and the priority for those has been initiating reforms designed to stimulate their domestic economies, while putting the single market back on the path to prosperity.
This year has been a testing time for France both politically and economically. With the country remaining in a state of emergency after the series of terrorist atrocities, which have plagued the nation for the past two years, in addition to a dwindling economy with stagnant growth, political capital is at an all-time low. That’s far from an enviable position for a government struggling to reform and in dire need of finding ways to stimulate the domestic economy and tackle unemployment. Continue reading “GC Powerlist: France”
A fundamental principle for multi-national companies is compliance with the law of all nations where they do business. But a recurrent dilemma is what to do when a corporation’s global ethical standards (‘oppose censorship’ for a global media company) collides with national law (China’s extensive state censorship). As companies globalize and nations regulate ever more, this vexatious problem is not esoteric, but recurring. Most companies make voluntary decisions to adopt ethical standards beyond what formal legal and financial rules mandate. A decision that a company’s global ethical standards conflict with national law raises a range of options: obey the law; be civilly disobedient (a very uncomfortable, often untenable, position for global companies dedicated to rule of law); try to change the law; or stop doing business in that nation. Continue reading “The conflict between a corporation’s global standards and national law”
GC Magazine was excited to host the second in its cutting-edge events series, Trailblazers, in Zurich on 8 June 2016. Once again, we were working with Tom Sager, the innovative former general counsel of DuPont.
Gregory Bopp – Managing partner, Bracewell LLP
David DeVeau – General counsel, Kinder Morgan Inc.
Jeffrey Kaplan – General counsel, LyondellBasell
Susan Lindberg – General counsel, Eni US Operating Co.
Inc. and head of the Americas Region legal department of Italian-based Eni SpA
Catherine McGregor – GC Magazine